I have been suffering from acnes since high school (now I am in grad school).

I have been taking minocycline (antibiotics) for four months now and most of my acnes are gone. However, I am left with redness and many depressed scars on my face. When I went to see my dermatologist, she told me that she didn't see anything severe and that I should wait because the depressed scars may fill in and the redness will go away with time.

I was wondering how long should I wait before seeking treatments? As in laser, dermabrasion and stuff. My depressed scars are still red/dark purple. From your experience, will they fill in?

And also, I am also using Stievamycin (tretinoin 0.025% and erythromycin 4%) every night before bed. Are they good for the redness and depressed scars?

The scars will not fill in. Radiesse injections work wonders. I had a dermabrasion, CO2 laser, Microdermabrasions, and fractional laser all in the last 20 years for the scarring. Also have done Obagi blue peel, and various other peels. In combination the all seems to help about about 10 percent. The injections to fill the depressions are the only thing that really worked. I spent almost 20g before finding fillers. Fillers are also very expensive, last only 3-6 months and have to be injected precisely or they make it worse. If you have not been on Accutane can do any of these. However I wouldn't spend the money until the problem is completely fixed or you will be repeating.

silicone injections are permanent, if you're not afraid of having silicone in your face. Silicone was about $700 per treatment, and I have had three. Only microdroplets are injected gradually, so there is less of a chance of over-filling of the scars. I think I would agree that laser or chemical resurfacing alone just doesn't cut it unless your scarring is very shallow.

Yeah I kind of wish that fillers would do it for me. But my scars are shallow and they are small too (radius less than 0.2mm). This is way I was thinking about laser. But then I still heard that laser might not improve my scars at all so... :/ Dilemma

I strongly recommend waiting until the redness has subsided. Is this blood pooled under your skin or just erythmia? Sorry, my PC refuses to load your gallery. If it's the latter then you could start to look at using a retinoid/retinol, like Retin-A. If your depressed scars are still red/purple then there actually is a chance that they may fill in... however if they're significant enough then I doubt they'd improve to the point where you have perfect skin, sadly.

Silicone fillers are nasty. I know in the right hands and via the microdroplet approach they can look amazing and can be safe but anything injected in the skin that is truly permanent should be a worry. What will you look like when your skin starts to sag? I guess you could argue that you're too old to care by then but... just my opinion.

If I were you I would get myself into an excellent skin care regime right now. I would also give my skin a while to recoup from the acne and from the medication. I would use this "waiting" time to research my options for scar correction if the scarring ends up bothering me. Sometimes playing the game of patience is really the best thing.

Also, if you like the idea of fillers then take a look at Airgent (I think it may now be called Enerjet also). No needles! The filler side of the Airgent is actually the secondary objective. The first is to create controlled trauma to the deeper layers of the skin to break up scar tissue and improve it long term. The extra boost is that you also get the immediate effect of the Hyaluronic Acid based filler. I'm looking into this treatment at the moment.